Edward Young Quotes

How blessings brighten as they take their flight.

We are all born originals - why is it so many of us die copies?

As soon as we have found the key of life, it opens the gates of death.

Too low they build who build below the skies.

Man makes a death which Nature never made. And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one.

Born originals, how comes it to pass that we die copies? That meddling ape imitation, as soon as we come to years of indiscretion, (so let me speak,) snatches the pen, and blots out nature's mark of separation, cancels her kind intention, destroys all mental individuality. The lettered world no longer consists of singulars: it is a medley, a mass; and a hundred books, at bottom, are but one.

Day buries day; month, month; and year the year: Our life is but a chain of many deaths.

Procrastination is the thief of time; year after year it steals, till all are fled, and to the mercies of a moment leaves the vast concerns of an eternal state. At thirty, man suspects himself a fool; knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; at fifty chides his infamous delay, pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; in all the magnanimity of thought, resolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same.

A foe to God ne'er was true friend to man, Some sinister intent taints all he does.

And can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

Who lives to Nature, rarely can be poor ; who lives to fancy, never can be rich.

In an active life is sown the seed of wisdom; but he who reflects not, never reaps; has no harvest from it, but carries the burden of age without the wages of experience; nor knows himself old, but from his infirmities, the parish register, and the contempt of mankind. And age, if it has not esteem, has nothing.

Where boasting ends, there dignity begins.

Leisure is pain; take off our chariot wheels; how heavily we drag the load of life!

Be wise with speed; a fool at forty is a fool indeed.

By night an atheist half-believes in God.

At thirty, man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan.

The future... seems to me no unified dream but a mince pie, long in the baking, never quite done

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful, is man!... Midway from nothing to the Deity!

The man who consecrates his hours by vigorous effort, and an honest aim, at once he draws the sting of life and Death; he walks with nature; and her paths are peace.

The course of Nature is the art of God

Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew, She sparkled, was exhaled, and went to heaven.

Born Originals, how comes it to pass that we die Copies?

Be wise to-day; 't is madness to defer.

Sweet instinct leaps; slow reason feebly climbs.